


like dreaming of angels

by infinitebees



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitebees/pseuds/infinitebees
Summary: jem didn't think they'd ever miss their strange dreams of asra, but the absence thereof makes them worry that something is amiss. julian has a remedy or two for sleepless nights. (song title from "angels," by the xx).





	like dreaming of angels

A mere few days without word from Asra has Jem anxious enough to be sleeping only fitfully, barely able to remain conscious for more than an hour before their worry for him bubbles up to the surface and brings them awake with it. They can’t stand the feeling; they’d hated the dreams at first, and but now their absence is louder in the silence than anything. When they open their eyes every morning it feels like looking into the sky only to see that the stars are completely missing. Not obscured by clouds or dimmed by the bright lanterns of the marketplace, just -- gone. Dozens of possibilities as to what might have become of Asra flash through Jem’s mind every night, none of which have a happy ending. He could be hurt, they think. Dead, even. Or, equally possible, he’s just gone. Given his flightiness, Jem wouldn’t be surprised if he’d simply left them and the rest of Vesuvia behind once and for all. Perhaps it’s thinking too little of their former teacher, but the mind does tend to run away with itself in such times as these.

The morning after a third almost sleepless night, Jem gets permission to venture into town with Portia later in the evening. 

“I suppose you’ve earned it,” Nadia had said, though it had seemed more to Jem that she was just troubled once again by headaches and would say anything to be left to herself again. But Jem isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so they took her word for it and when evening rolled around with its purplish hues and the taste of summer on the air, Jem made their way out of the palace with Portia at their side.

They had parted ways at the marketplace; Portia, knowing where Jem planned on going, told them that she didn’t want to spend too much time with Julian, lest the Countess begin to suspect anything. She had said something about “plausible deniability” before wandering off to do some shopping so that she wouldn’t have to wake up early the next day to do it (surprising, to Jem — they didn’t know one could buy from the market so late). Which is why Jem is standing hesitantly in an alleyway now, picking nervously at a loose thread on their top -- the one they’d worn to the palace to begin with. There’s nothing to explain their trepidation at entering the tavern, really, except perhaps for the sleep deprivation that tugs Jem’s thoughts to more and more esoteric places and makes them feel rather like the last time they felt when they’d had a bit too much to drink and tried to dance on the table of their own shop with Lavinia, months ago.

And of course, just then, it begins to rain.

It isn’t as though Jem minds the rain, but they typically enjoy it more when they’re inside and can listen to the gentle patter of it against the thin glass of their shop. They tend to relish it substantially less when it soaks the fabric of their clothing and makes it cling to their body, and moreover it’s the driving sort of rain that deadens the sound of the world and leaves one adrift among their own thoughts and the sound of water cleansing the dust of the morning. This is, perhaps, why Julian laughs as loudly as he does when he spots them sulking beneath the awning of some sort of medicine shop, arms crossed against their chest and gaze pointed at the sky as though reprimanding it for its poor timing. 

“Shopkeep,” he says with an open smile. Jem had missed that. “Why are you waiting out here? Come in, have a drink. None of the people here bite, you know. Well.” He pauses and that friendly smile shifts into something decidedly more smug. “They do, sometimes, but only if you like. But please, do get yourself out of the rain. You look about as happy as a soaking wet cat.”

They give him a look that, under different circumstances (like, for example, with dry clothing), may perhaps have been stern. But, happy to be invited in, they take his outstretched arm and allow him to lead them into the light and the noise of the tavern.

 

-

 

“D’you know,” Julian says over his drink sometime later, “I thought you’d be shorter.”

Jem laughs a little and looks up at him. “Did you, now?” they ask. The hour is late, and they feel more comfortable than they’ve felt in quite some time. Evidently Julian really does just have one of those faces. “Why’s that?”

He shrugs, and his shirt comes off his shoulder a little. He doesn’t bother to adjust it. Jem resists the urge to do it for him, and instead holds on a little more tightly to their glass of water. “Asra always went on about you being cute. I figured that meant… small.” 

It’s some time after ten, or at least Jem thinks it is. They should be getting back -- they know they ought to be getting back -- but they can’t quite resign themself to the inevitable sleepless night in a room too big for them and a silence worse than any they’ve ever experienced even despite Nadia’s overwhelming hospitality. Anyway it’s nice to be able to blow off steam; it’s been a stressful week in their waking hours, too. And if Jem happens to like the way their new friend looks beneath the scant light of the tavern… well.

At the mention of Asra, though, they wrinkle their nose. It isn’t as though they hate him now or anything like that, but they still can’t shake the feeling of abandonment. Nor can they shake the dreamlike sensation of watching Asra disappear into the water of the fountain, the lingering yearning for _something_ that follows them wherever Asra is concerned. And then there’s the more pressing issue of his sudden silence. This, though -- the idea that Asra could have talked about them to Julian, or anyone else for that matter -- brings heat to their face, whether from embarrassment or something fonder they can’t rightly say. The idea of having been significant enough to someone to warrant discussion with another isn’t exactly something they’d ever expected. They want to know what else Asra told Julian about them, but perhaps… now isn’t the time.

More compelling now is the glint of Julian’s teeth as he grins and takes another drink; the curve of his collarbone that Jem has been wanting to feel for hours now. They almost do, rather than respond to what he’s just said, but something about the whole thing feels as though it might shatter if Jem does anything at all. So instead they meet his gaze and smile and say, “Don’t let’s talk about him tonight, doctor.”

The hours pass, and before they know it they’ve been here past midnight when Julian puts his hand down decisively on the wood of the table and says, “Right, then. Something’s the matter.” 

When they open their mouth to protest, Julian shakes his head and fixes his eye on them sternly. “No, no, I won’t listen to you tell me otherwise. I know sleep deprivation when I see it, my friend. You’re looking awfully… wobbly. And I’m not going to let you stumble back to the palace in this state; God only knows what sort of fate could befall someone like you at this hour. Although... “ He grimaces. “Well, you certainly don’t look like you’re carrying anything valuable, so I suppose mugging isn’t a concern right now. Did the Countess forget to dress you this morning?”

Jem scowls. “I just missed these, that’s all,” they retort. “I can’t dress like _that_ all the time, it just feels… wrong somehow. But…” They sigh as they reluctantly meet his gaze, but the sound turns into something more like a yawn, as if to give them away. “Fine, yes, I’m _horrendously_ tired. It’s --” They begin to explain their concern for Asra and immediately think better of it. “Just. Suffice it to say sleeping in the palace has proven to be something of a challenge for me lately.”

“Is that so?” Julian leans back and folds his arms behind his head. “Generally when I have such a problem I find that a change of scenery helps to remedy that predicament. I live right upstairs. I don’t mean to sound forward, and would never have you mistake my intentions, but I think it might be best you stay there tonight, yes?”

“ _Bed,_ doctor? With you?” they ask, grinning in a way they don’t normally feel bold enough to do and certainly wouldn’t were they not so sleep deprived as to feel slightly drunk. They take a small pleasure in the way their words seem to fluster Julian. But after a moment of serious thought, they nod. “I guess it could do me some good.”

With that, Julian stands and brushes imaginary dust off the front of his jacket. “Very well,” he says, hoisting Jem out of their side of the booth and allowing them to lean heavily against him as lack of sleep and a long day catch up to them all at once. “To bed you go.” He supports them as they leave the gentle warmth of the Rowdy Raven and enter into the summer air, cooled by the rain that had abated some time ago. Jem closes their eyes and breathes in deeply, leaning back into Julian’s chest in the process. And he lets them for a while, until finally he points upwards.

“There’s me,” he says with a soft smile. “You think you can make it up a couple flights?”

They pretend to consider. “I dunno, doctor, you might have to carry me…” They look up at him from under their lashes and press against him just a little closer. 

When he sighs, Jem can tell it’s the fond sort. “Right,” he murmurs, and without another word he picks them up quite soundly and, bridal style, carries them up the stairs to his apartment. 

It’s sparse, which isn’t altogether surprising to Jem. There’s no evidence that the place belongs to Julian at all, save perhaps for the plague doctor mask that sits on a nightstand beside his bed. The sight of it brings to mind their first meeting, and Jem laughs into Julian’s neck at the memory. Julian looks down at them questioningly, but doesn’t speak. Instead he focuses on kicking stray clothes and papers out of his path as he moves the two of them towards the bed, and Jem continues their visual exploration of the doctor’s room. All that they gather from it is that Julian is about as messy as his appearance would suggest.

Once the room is clear to his satisfaction, Julian sets the apprentice down on his bed and sets to taking off their shoes as they sink into the mattress. It’s not luxurious like the bed on which they sleep at the palace, but there is a certain kind of comfort about it that makes Jem feel just a little bit more as though they were in their own home. Their bun, though, is poking into the back of their head. They groan to themself, which earns them a questioning look from Julian that they answer by way of pulling their hair tie out and throwing it onto the ground.

“Well now you’ve just left me more to clean later,” Julian grumbles as he shrugs off his coat and shirt before joining them on the bed. Jem only gives him a half-repentant smile as they turn their body to face him. Then he’s laying beside them, closer to them than he’s ever been. They smell alcohol on his breath, and see the specks of gold in his eye as he tilts his head to look down at them. Without thinking, Jem closes their eyes and leans in to close the distance and feels Julian’s breath leave his lips in a rush before he practically scrambles back towards the edge of the bed. 

Jem just watches him, face hot with mortification and stomach twisting anxiously at the prospect of rejection (they understand, of course, but it always does hurt). “Um. Sorry,” they mutter after a moment. “I misread things. Dunno what’s got into me, I think it must -- I think it’s just all the sleep I haven’t been getting.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he replies breezily, nudging Jem’s arm with his. The contact is comforting, even as it makes their stomach flip pleasantly in a distinctly unchaste way. He gives them a smile that tries to soften the panic in Jem’s voice, and to their surprise it does help, a little.

“But y’don’t want to.”

He laughs. “Maybe another time, shopkeep. Maybe tomorrow. Now, though, you really need to sleep. Doctor’s orders.” He leans over them to put out the lamp on the nightstand beside them -- which must have been burning the entire time that Julian was at the tavern? Which can’t be terribly safe -- but is stopped by Jem’s voice again.

“Doctor--”  
“Julian,” he corrects. Gently, always gently. So unlike the first time they met.

“Right, whatever. Why d’you wear your gloves all the time?” At the question, he finally looks down at them from above. His eye, lit by the warmth of the lantern, looks at once panicked and profoundly sad before, in an instant, he recovers.

“It’s more hygienic?” he tries with a grin, after just a moment too long. It falters when Jem just looks at him, somehow managing to look imposingly skeptical even tucked in and so tired their eyelids flutter nearly every moment. “And because… well, why don’t you look?” He takes off his glove to reveal the murderer’s brand, and Jem instantly feels like a fool for not having already guessed.

“Oh,” they say, eloquently. They stare at it a moment longer than is probably polite before tearing their gaze away, opting instead to stare a hole in the ceiling above them. “That, uh. That’ll do it.”

“Indeed,” Julian murmurs primly. They see his expression soften from the corner of their eye, though. “But that’s enough of that. I’ll let you sleep, yes?”

Jem curls into as tight a ball as they can, facing away from him and effectively hogging the covers as the exhaustion of the day and of several hours of social interaction catch up with them. It’s less draining with Julian, but still draining, especially after so many nights without quality sleep. “Mm. Yeah, I guess ‘m tired.”

They feel his laugh more than they hear it, even as he rolls away to toss his gloves onto his desk; there’s something warm about his laughter, just like the rest of him. They could live in it, they allow themself to think. They’ll live in it, if _he_ lives. “You guess?” When he returns to bed his arms are bare and he brushes their hair out of their face before settling, curled up against them comfortingly. 

“Goodnight,” he murmurs into their hair. In the dark it feels louder than it is and the words settle somewhere at the bottom of their heart like a coin to the bottom of a lake.

Before sleep drags them under they open their eyes. “Julian… Ilya.” They hear his breath catch behind them. “I don’t think you’re very bad at all.”

If he responds, they’re asleep before they can hear it.

 

-

 

(he carries them with him. not physically, of course -- they haven’t felt his hand on them in such a long time that the memory of it is a faded thing, like an old drawing kept in a pile for so long that the pencil has begun to smudge -- but more like the memory of them, a thing meant to sustain him as he journeys deeper, deeper. usually they are behind him, calling out for him but never able to reach him, but this time he walks towards them in long, tired strides.

“it won’t be much longer now,” he says with a smile that settles somewhere in the marrow of their bones. even over the sound of the wind, even over the sound of their own heart in their ears, they hear him call to them.

“until what?” 

“you’ll see. soon, Jem, i promise.” when he reaches for them sand winds around his arm in a dizzying spiral as the world around him fades into the bleeding darkness that Jem had thought was just tunnel vision. “but right now you need to wake up.”)

 

-

 

When they do wake it’s with a start, with Julian’s arms around their middle and with a dream quickly fading from memory. They turn their head to find Julian already awake, looking rested but thoughtful. Troubled, somehow. He closes that off when he feels them move, however, and gives them a soft smile that feels something like the sun coming over the horizon.

“Good morning,” he greets. He shifts to accommodate them as they turn their body to face him, but his hands don’t leave their waist. “I hope you slept well?”

“Better than I have been in the palace, oddly enough,” they say. And it’s true -- they didn’t wake once last night, not for anything. They try to blink the sleep from their eyes and find that the sun is _entirely_ too bright this morning. Then something comes filtering back through into their memory, something from last night…

“Hey,” they say, tilting their head up towards Julian’s with a wide grin. “You promised me a kiss.”

The doctor quirks one eyebrow as the corner of his mouth quirks upwards, just momentarily. “I distinctly remember saying _maybe_ , which I think rather goes against the point of a promise.”

Jem pouts and leans closer still somehow. “You _promised_ , Julian.”

Outside, birdsong winds around the conversations that carry through the square, even into the alleys, even into the cramped apartment of a fugitive doctor. Asra had always told Jem that there is magic in what the birds sing, if only you listen for it. Had Jem been listening they may have understood, today. But then, it isn’t the sort of magic meant to be overheard by humans anyway, and Jem had also been taught that eavesdropping is altogether impolite. 

It doesn’t matter, ultimately, because they’re too caught up watching an endearing shade of red color Julian's face as he struggles to maintain eye contact while the two of them engage in a staring contest that feels balanced on the edge of a blade. Jem can see the moment he capitulates: his mouth curls into something fond, and then right to the grin that Jem’s come to recognize as bravado trying to will itself into something more genuine.

He tilts his head down and moves to close the distance between their noses, their mouths. “A promise, then,” he murmurs against their lips, smirking at the shiver he can feel in his hands where they still rest on their waist. “Who would I be to break a promise?”

When they kiss him this time, he doesn’t pull away. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> new to the fandom! well, i suppose everyone is. you can find me at elfroots420 on tumblr!


End file.
